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Climate change is increasing the risk of severe drought in California by causing warm periods and dry periods to overlap more often, according to a new study. Rising temperatures resulting from increased greenhouse gas emissions mean warm and dry periods are coinciding more frequently, the study authors say. And that is amplifying the effects of low precipitation. “The key for drought stress is not just how much precipitation there is,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, the paper’s lead author and an associate professor at Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences. “Temperature is an important influence on the water available in...

Related "Droughts and Heat Waves" Articles

Climate change is increasing the risk of severe drought in California by causing warm periods and dry periods to overlap more often, according to a new study.
Rising temperatures resulting from increased greenhouse gas emissions mean warm and dry...

As Joao Paulo Bezerra pedals slowly up a slight incline between skyscrapers, he pauses briefly to greet a struggling colleague crossing his path.
"Morning, buddy," says Bezerra, forcing his tricycle and its cargo of eight large plastic water...

Global warming will bring the "unprecedented" risk of a decades-long mega-drought in the American Southwest and Great Plains during the second half of the century, researchers claim.
The forecast, which was published online Thursday...

It’s still a little too early to tell for sure, but the news on the California wild salmon front is not good. A combination of low water levels in streams because of the drought and high summer temperatures resulted in a massive die-off of young salmon in...

Gov. Jerry Brown and U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced Friday a $29-million plan to help California's parched Central Valley cope with the ongoing drought.
The money is intended to upgrade scientific monitoring in the Delta, which...

Santa Barbara County water agencies announced Friday that they will receive $2 million in state funding for a pumping project at Cachuma Lake -- a source of drinking water for 220,000 people on the southern central coast -- where water levels have dropped...

Drought, fire-suppression techniques and changes in land use have made California forests denser with smaller trees and more susceptible to fast-moving wildfires, a study to be released Tuesday has found.
Researchers at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and the U.S....

Drought, fire suppression techniques and changes in land use have made California forests denser and more susceptible to fast-moving wildfires, a study to be released Tuesday has found.
Researchers at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and the U.S. Geological...

A tractor rumbled over 2 acres of green turf last month at the MillerCoors brewery, its mechanical rake leaving wide swaths of thirsty grass chomped up in its wake.
The once-lush knoll, by springtime, will feature a pathway of decomposed granite, a bed...

The data are back and what climate experts predicted was indeed true – 2014 was the hottest year on record in California.
According to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center, the average temperature in...

Wet weather kept Alberto Ortega from working most of last week — and he couldn't have been more pleased.
"This rain is a blessing I was beginning to think I'd never see," the gardener said.
In four decades of tending people's yards, this...

There are two things very annoying about the deluges that have been drenching California. And neither involves nature.
Both involve government.
One is that the downpours are routinely dismissed by bureaucrats and water professionals as not very...

When a man of 91 is downright cantankerous and has been on his land longer than most everyone else has been alive, he wastes no time speaking his mind.
So after his new neighbor started sinking a well to plant a water-sucking almond orchard in the middle...

At brunch on a recent Thursday, Sunny Butler nibbled at an omelet and considered playing a round later that afternoon. Part of the joy of living on the 18th hole of the Citrus Club in the Coachella Valley, Butler said, is the verdant green landscape...

The winter's first manual measurement of the Sierra Nevada snowpack will take place next week, state officials said Tuesday, eager for any signs of relief from one of California's worst droughts in a century of record-keeping.
The snowpack is crucial...

The long-range weather forecast is the biggest wild card in the battle over every available bucket of water in drought-stricken California — but a close second may be Dianne Feinstein.
In a dispute in which positions have hardened after years of...

A cold snap this week brought snow and freezing temperatures to much of California during the final days of the year, but for the most part 2014 was hot.
In fact, it was the warmest year for California since record-keeping began in 1877.
The average...

Scott Martin surveys his Christmas trees, inspecting their needles row by row for signs of stress.
The trees in his South Bay nursery differ from those in a typical Christmas tree lot: These are potted living trees, and they're for rent, not for sale....

Officials in Orange and San Diego counties Wednesday warned residents to steer clear of the ocean as a double whammy of rain runoff and sewage contamination hit beaches along the Southern California coast.
In Newport Bay, Orange County environmental...

Californians are living through the most severe three-year drought in the last 1,200 years, according to a new study published this week in an American Geophysical Union journal.
Although other three-year periods have been drier, 2012-14 stands as...